Leafcutter bee nests and pupae from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits of Southern California: implications for understanding the paleoenvironment of the Late Pleistocene.

ABSTRACT: The Rancho La Brea Tar Pits is the world's richest and most important Late Pleistocene fossil locality and best renowned for numerous fossil mammals and birds excavated over the past century. Less researched are insects, even though these specimens frequently serve as the most valuable paleoenvironemental indicators due to their narrow climate restrictions and life cycles. Our goal was to examine fossil material that included insect-plant associations, and thus an even higher potential for significant paleoenviromental data. Micro-CT scans of two exceptionally preserved leafcutter bee nest cells from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California reveal intact pupae dated between ∼23,000-40,000 radiocarbon years BP. Here identified as best matched to Megachile (Litomegachile) genti

SUBMITTER: Holden AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3981822 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature